I keep hearing the term in political discourse, and rather than googling it, I’m asking the people who know better than Google.
I never encountered its usage outside of the fediverse but appears to mean someone who espouses communist things but also is a russia/china apologist politically. Appears to be derogetory.
That seems pretty accurate
People fed up with the the (false) sin/cos dichotomy and want to get people to use tan more often.
the (false) sin/cos dichotomy
but… but… if sin/cos is false, that is literally tan ! (yes, I was frequently bullied in high school, why do you ask?)
Tan is the tao out of which the sin and cos arise
I don’t mind those people, I just wish they wouldn’t go off on tangentially related subjects.
If I wanted to make a high engagement post I would post something like this. Are there any other controversial, not clearly defined words to ask about?
Socialism and communism seem to be very misunderstood outside of places like Grad, Hexbear, Lemmy.ml, etc. Some thing social programs are socialism, others think the Marxist conception of communism is incompatible with administration, some think any form of market or private property has to be eradicated for socialism to exist, some think it’s about worker/employer relationships, etc. I think it would be a decent idea to form a better understanding.
For clarity, socialism is best described as a transitional status between capitalism and communism, by which public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy (controls the large firms and key industries at a minimum) and the working class is in control of the state. This fits cleanly with socialism in practice and with Marxist conceptions of socialism.
I honestly saw someone use the word, wondered what they actually meant by it, and came here to ask. TBF, I didn’t know much about what “here” was, at the time.
Lemmy is developed by communists, and Reddit banned a bunch of leftist subreddits like r/chapotraphouse, r/GenZedong, and r/TheDeprogram. As a consequence, a bunch of communists are on Lemmy by ratio compared to Reddit, though Lemmy.world is defederated and blocks 2/3rds of the major communist instances, so you can’t actually see them. They usually are on Lemmygrad.ml or Hexbear.net if you want to see the communist side of Lemmy.
Lemmy.ml is the dev’s testing instance, so that’s why a lot of communists are here but also why it’s not defederated by Lemmy.world.
Someone mentioned that, but I have yet to see why dot world blocked the commie instances. Care to share?
Here’s Lemmy.world explaining why. Essentially, for having stances common to communists (opposing western hegemony is a big one they took issue with). Lemmy.world is run by your standard DNC-style liberals, they generally oppose Marxism and communism, and uphold the DNC as good. Some are also zionists.
Now, that’s my perspective as a communist. I’m a Marxist-Leninist, my perspective is as someone who reads theory, does light org work, etc. I’m not a fan of the DNC, I support socialist states, etc. Others may give a different perspective, but it’s also worth noting that there are entire drama communities dedicated to taking comments out of context, witch-hunting communists, etc and this is made even worse by defederation because it creates this “boogeyman” that .world can’t actually see.
Hope that helps, honestly you can just scroll grad and hexbear yourself for a bit without making an account to see what’s up.
Thank you for the reasonable reply that didn’t attack my character for asking. Apparently, that’s too much to ask of some people.
No worries! A lot of people get emotionally invested in drama, which is why tons of the definitions you’ve been given for “tankie” are people that don’t actually exist. It’s like saying “communist but boogieman.” This creates the response from communists defending ourselves from slander, which is why this became a mess. Kinda like if you went into a random room and asked people what “woke” meant.
Lemmy has few conservatives (outside of instances like sh.itjust.works), so the biggest ideological conflict is communist vs liberal, with anarchists kinda doing their own thing and aligning more or less with the former or the latter.
Just be warned, Cowbee is very much misrepresenting things here.
I urge you to read the thread he linked, and not take his summary seriously.
As I explained in my reply to you, I misrepresented nothing. Lemmy.world admins banned Hexbear because of ideological disagreements they deemed unacceptable before even federating. Hexbear never said they were going to “wage a propaganda war,” they just suggested that if their users were to discuss politics in federated threads that they try to be more professional about it.
Reading that thread, it’s clearly not for “having stances”. Very, very clearly it’s about their intention to push anti-liberal propaganda and dismantle liberalism across the fediverse.
Yours is a clearly disingenuous reading, and I hope people here aren’t just taking you at your word.
It’s absolutely for having stances deemed unacceptable by the admin team. For the admin team, only liberal propaganda is allowable. Any left-critique of liberalism is deemed “extreme,” and was pre-emptively silenced. The admins are trying to have their cake and eat it too, by saying that it’s unacceptable to push viewpoints systemically while cutting out anyone that goes against their own viewpoints.
If you’re really gonna say deliberately connecting to an instance with the stated goal of dismantling and inserting a communist ideology via a propaganda war is tantamount to “just having a stance” then it should be clear to everyone what a bad actor you are.
Imagine if I publicaly stated that the goal of my instance was to build a userbase, infiltrate .ml, dismantle communist ideology, and spread liberal propaganda. Are you really gonna pretend you’d leap to my defense when Dessalines obviously banned/defederated me?
Hell, he loves to abuse rule 2 to silence “Liberals” constantly. Yet you don’t seem to have anything to say about that…
From what I’ve seen, it appears a very vocal minority of .world users cannot tolerate any criticism or viewpoints opposing capitalism/liberialism or NATO.
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Lol
Shit, my comment got deleted, do you remember what it said? I can’t remember. Im sure it was probably something irritating for a communist…
Complaining about communists like you’re trapped in the 1950’s
Dont forget the past, lest youre doomed to repeat it.
In 1950s everyone learned the horrors of a communist system, and now 70ish years later, those with 1st hand experience are mostly dead.
I mean, yall confuse me. In your opinion, should we not have fought communism in the 50s?
The word Tankie originates from 1950s British Communist circles. Specifically, it was used by British Communists to derisively describe their comrades who supported the 1956 invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union.
Images of the Soviet invasion featured a lot of tanks, hence, “Tankie”.
After that died down, the term didn’t come back into use really, until the 2010s, when leftists on the internet started using it in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. It was fun to bring back a stupid sounding, incredibly niche, British slang word.
At some point the word breached containment and started to be used by liberals, in a very cavilier sort of way. I’ve seen people use Tankie to describe anyone from Marxist-Leninists, to Marxists generally, to Leftists generally, weird right-wingers who converted to Russian Orthodoxy, pro-Palestine activists, mods of Lemmy instances someone doesn’t like.
Shit, I’ve seen literal Anarchist get called Tankies.
Basically, it’s a meaningless nothing word now, that’s a bit like your boomer grandpa who still thinks it’s the Red Scare, calling Joe Biden a Commie Pinko.
So don’t worry about it too much.
Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to authoritarian communists, especially those who support or defend acts of repression by such regimes, their allies, or deny the occurrence of the events thereof. More specifically, the term has been applied to those who express support for one-party Marxist–Leninist socialist republics, whether contemporary or historical. It is commonly used by anti-authoritarian leftists, anarchists, libertarian socialists, left communists, social democrats, democratic socialists, and reformists to criticise Leninism, although the term has seen increasing use by liberal and right‐wing factions as well.
Someone who believes people outside of the United States of America are also human beings.
Anyone ideologically left of Richard Nixon according to our local blue conservatives.
Nixon was a tankie according to them. He’s responsible for the EPA and OSHA.
Left of Reagan.
When a South Asian calls the British monarchy fascist or Churchill a genocider in my experience.
Isn’t monarchy already a bigger bad word in itself than fascism?
Not according to the Yakubians over at the miserable island.
I actually always wondered a bit about the line between fascism and monarchism. To the casual observer they might seem nearly identical, though I wonder if in historical materialist terms it’s a reactionary attempt to backslide to feudalism rather than progress capitalism to socialism.
Typically it refers to leftists who strongly defend/advocate for authoritarian statist approaches to socialism/communism.
OP, what have you unleashed.
I just thought this was where you came to ask questions.
It is, I’m just kidding around. Your question was innocent enough, it’s just that the comments look like a battlefield.
you’re on the .ml instance, which is an incredibly political place, so you’re gonna get a lot of flack
I think every instance has pretty strong political views
A size of tank, smaller than normal tank, but bigger than tankette.
A person who opposes genocide
A cute water cistern.
That is an adorable tankie
Like most words it can mean different things depending on context. I’ll do my best to cover a few without spoiling it with my own opinions.
The most common usage is as a blanket pejorative aimed at anyone who identifies as leftist but also openly endorses authoritarian means or ends.
There are also those who embrace the term and they are also not all the same. There are Marxist-Leninists who believe the only path to a stateless egalitarian society is through a revolutionary vanguard party. There are also those who argue that egalitarian society can only be achieved and maintained through benevolent authoritarianism.
In any case, the term carries an implication of authoritarianism and/or revolutionary violence, hence “tanks.”
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No communist calls the ROK an “occupier,” it’s the US Empire that is occupying Korea, with the ROK’s government set up directly by them. This whole comment is really bad, to be honest. In practice, “tankie” is essentially a pejorative for “communist.” I recommend the Prolewiki article on “Tankies,” as well as Nia Frome’s essay “Tankies.”
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No, the government of the southern half of Korea, the Republic of Korea, is not an “occupier.” The democratically elected state was the People’s Republic of Korea (PRK), which spanned the entire peninsula before the US Empire came in, declared it illegal, and split the country in two, against the will of Koreans, and installed the dictator Rhee Syngman in place. The PRK was a quasi-socialist state that predated both the DPRK and ROK’s governments.
Again, “tankie” in practice is just a pejorative for communists, akin to “pinko” or “commie.” The fact that you’re getting very basic communist stances on Korea completely wrong here betrays any sense of legitimacy you have on the subject.
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“Tankie” isn’t a political ideology, it’s a McCarthyite strawman with ready-made characteristics designed to make it so that you don’t have to respond to the points communists make. The origin of the term being in putting down the 1956 CIA supported and MI6 armed fascist counter-revolution in Hungary where the fascists let Nazis out of prison to lynch Jews and communists doesn’t make any difference on today’s usage.
16·4 days agoYour image is really bad quality, you should get a better one, https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2025/0318/104-10110-10525.pdf
Thank you!
Tankie isn’t a political ideology, it is a commentary on the practice of policy in comparison to stated beliefs.
how dare those damn tankies improve material conditions.
No, it’s a pejorative and McCarthyite strawman.
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The current usage is as an anticommunist pejorative and McCarthyite strawman.
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The ROK has a liberal democracy, but it was forced on the people of southern Korea without their consent. The US Empire staffed it with prior compradors that were in power during Japanese colonialism. The ROK is currently a dictatorship of capital under a special class of people referred to as “chaebol,” under the occupation of the US Empire.
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All states are “authoritarian,” in that all states are means by which one class exerts its authority over the others. Communists support the working class being in charge of that authority, all communists (unless you count anarchists) support the use of the state against capitalists and fascists, and the majority of practicing communists support socialist states.
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I don’t like being referred to like “one of you.” I don’t care what they posted, I am explaining directly to you.
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The ROK essentially being a comprador government set up by a colonizer does not mean it’s occupying itself. The US Empire is occupying Korea, not the comprador government.
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